In Search of the Miraculous

It's three am, the wind is gone. The heat pours out from all around.

It's late August in Belize. I suppose it is late August everywhere else too. Throughout the hot season Belizeans often open their conversations to me with "It's very HOT, No?". Not so now in late August. No one seems to much want to think about much less discuss the heat.


It isn't only the heat. The suns rays are a bit more direct at this latitude. Coming out of a building into the sunlight one can feel an almost physical blow from the sunlight. I often see local people, office workers at lunch time for instance, shielding their heads from the sun with folders or whatever paperwork they happen to have handy as they walk to conduct their lunchtime affairs. The sun can cook your head here.

I am told that wealthy Belizeans often leave Belize in late August. Many go to Miami, Houston or Los Angeles, where it is cooler. The rest carry on, here in the heat.

There is a Hurricane named Gustav in the Caribbean right now. When that happens, something changes in the wind patterns, and we get no breeze. We are afraid of Hurricanes, and that is sensible. Yet when I told Rebecca that there was a Hurricane passing near us but not so close, she asked hopefully if it would pass close enough to give us some rain. I too hope the rains start.

You may know that hour before the strong thunderstorm, where the heat somehow climbs higher and hotter than any other hour. There is a sensation in the body that the hotter it is, the stronger the coming thunderstorm will be. This is the sensation I feel here in Belize. But not for a single hour, instead it lasts the month of August.

It's three am, Rebecca moves around fitfully in futile attempts to sleep in this heat. I stand in the doorway to the house to catch the breeze. But there is no breeze. All the house is quiet and dark, the street is silently bathed in the yellow light of the street light. All of creation suffers from the heat.

My thoughts turn to fearful things. The price of food is going up, the price of everything is going up, everywhere. The people's wages are flat, if they can find work at all. There will be an increase in crime, there already has been, but there will be more so. Life will become an order of magnitude harder for everyone. It will be like this everywhere.

My breath comes slower, as if the body weighs the need for fresh oxygen against the heat that would be brought into the body by the hot air. Going to the kitchen to drink a liter of water, I notice that my unreasonable optimism, that irrational confidence in uncertainty, has waned much in the past few weeks. As I drink my water I wonder how I shall be when it is gone. I think that I will return to cynicism, harsh pragmatism. With the last swallow of water I know that my strange faith has completely left me. I wonder what shall become of us now that I am no longer crazy. Unbidden the words come to mind, "well, you live and learn".

Without a thought as to how my sweet madness might be renewed, I return to the front door to fearfully watch the empty street. Approaching the door, I hear a strange sound. With a cold and joyless humor I imagine that it is fitting that when faith fails, the sky should fall. I look out into the darkness to see if perchance it is rain. But the concrete walkway appears dry. Curious now, I watch. In a moment it becomes clear enough. Large drops of rain are falling, they strike the concrete with enough force to make a strange thudlike noise, as if falling from an unusually great height. Each drop leaves a large wet spot, the size of a quarter or even larger. This spot quickly dries away. I don't know if it is sucked into the concrete or if it quickly evaporates, but the rain falls and yet does not long wet the ground.

After a time, the ground has finally become evenly wet, it's power to dissipate the rain abated. No puddles have formed, but the concrete is no longer hot enough to boil off the rain as it falls. Not yet being the time for rain, the water drops cease to fall from the sky.

So perfectly matched to the need was the rainfall that I thought I ought to say or think something by way of gratitude. As I tried to formulate such a sentiment, some small high-pitched creature in the bushes began to chirp enthusiastically. Judging the singing gecko's prayer more perfect than any I could come up with, I let his chirping serve for both of us, adding only, "yea, me too".

Returning to bed, I noticed Rebecca was sound asleep. Soon I was too.